If you brought your Bibles, grab them and turn to Numbers chapter 3. Numbers chapter 3. And uh that's all the way on the left side of your Bible. So, you don't have to go. Just go all the way to Genesis and then just turn right and you'll find it pretty quick. Numbers chapter 3. If you're new around here, have been here for a few weeks. Uh about 8 weeks ago, beginning of the summer, we talked about how we're turning 15 this fall. And we launched into 15 weeks of celebrating 15 years of God's faithfulness. And August 10th, of course, we'll have a big celebration. Want to make sure you're here. It's going to be a great great weekend. And in the midst of all that, we're now in a smaller series. Uh this is week three of this series that we're calling my church. And uh that's really the goal is that for those of you who have been here for a while, we'd love for you to kind of cross that line in your language and in your heart from that church or your church to my church. Instead of saying, "Hey, you guys do a great job." Or, "I'm proud of them." and say uh we are uh so blessed and I'm thankful for what God is doing through us because it truly takes all of us and I'm so thankful for how you give, how you serve, how you attend and and all the difference that we get to make together. And in week one, we talked about cultural uh thoughts and foundational things about our church. We talked about how my church enjoys life. And uh week two, last week, we talked about my church empowers people. You were born on purpose and for a purpose. It's our job to help you discover those gifts. Of course, if you miss those, you can jump online as always. Today, I want to talk to you about how my church embraces momentum. I want to talk to you about some principles of momentum. And uh it's a fascinating study in the book of Numbers, chapter 3. And uh it's really centered around the idea that God's people are always supposed to be moving. That there should be movement in the body of Christ. The great commission is to go everywhere and to tell everyone. We're not here to create a Christian club. This is not uh a social club. We believe truly that heaven and hell hang in the balance. There is a heaven to gain and an actual place called hell to pay for your sin. And that time is short. People are hurting. Jesus is the answer. And so that's our mission. Jesus said, "I need you to help me seek and to save those who are lost." And so we've made that our mission. And I'm going to talk to you about how that works here. In fact, it's a great weekend to be new because we'll really talk about kind of all of what we're trying to accomplish. Uh in numbers three, this I I learned this outline or this perspective from my pastor who founded uh Church of the Highlands in Birmingham, Pastor Chris. And uh it's a fascinating study because the nation of Israel is in portable church at this time. They're going from Egypt to the promised land. So they're kind of like having church in a high school setting up and tearing down and uh don't have their own place yet cuz they haven't gotten to the promised land and haven't built the temple. And uh what we find in Numbers 3, we're going to start in verse 17. It says that these were the names of the sons of Levi. You had Gershon, Kohath, and Marari. Now those are some bad names. And no offense to Gershon, if you're here today, praise the Lord. You had terrible parents. I know we live in a world that likes to name kids weird stuff. You know, we name them like butterfly and tape and, you know, whatever. I don't know what we're doing exactly, but as a church community, we need to make sure we avoid things like Gershon. Some names ought to just pass with time. Praise the Lord. These three are ones that should. But each of them as the sons of the Levites were called to be the priests. They were the ones that ministered in the temple. And so they each were assigned a responsibility. Verse 21, we find Gershon. He he had the the clans of the Libanites and the Shimeites. And that's the Gersonite clans. And at the tent of meeting, the Gersinites were responsible to care for uh the Bible says the tabernacle and the tent. They had the curtains, the entrance to the tent of meeting, the curtains for the courtyard, the curtains for the entrance to the courtyard. So they had all those kinds of things. Then to Kohath verse 30 uh 27 if you drop down Kohath they had the am A am A am A am A am A am A am A am A am A am A amites the Israelites the Hebonites the Uzelites and that's the Kathite clans those were all the families that made them and they were responsible to care for the ark the table the lampstand the altars those are the things of worship articles of the sanctuary ministering before the Lord and then if you drop down now to verse 33 last little section it says to Marari they had declared hands of the Malites and the Mushites. And that's the Morite clans. They were appointed to care for the frames of the tabernacle, the crossbarss, the posts, the bases, all of its equipment, everything related to their use, as well as the posts of the surrounding courtyard, the tent pegs, the ropes. They had the structural stuff. I want to spend a couple of minutes unpacking this text, this little passage here, because it has great relevance not just to our church, but to your personal life as well. And uh I think I just was amused as I read this passage. I'm always fascinated how things change over time. And uh the Bible is full of itites, right? Like you have the Gersinites that had the you know the Libanites and the Sheites and the Kathites also had the Amorites and the Isites and the Hebites and the Uelites and then the Mirites had the Malites and the Mushites. And then they get to their country that they're trying to go to the promised land. They had to fight all these enemies like the Amalachites, the Hittites, the Jebisites, the Amorites, the Canaanites. It's like it's all itites. What happened to that? They're all the itites are gone. Except for today. Maybe you have some enemies that sound like those like appetites or socialites. If you believe in air conditioning, campsites, praise the Lord. We have invented inside. Why would we go out and sleep on the ground? Or maybe pizza bites. Man, those are tempting. Can't ever get enough of those. Or parasites. Some of you would say, "I got one of those in my family." Praise the Lord. Why don't you turn to your neighbor and say, "Uh, let's go get pizza bites after church. That sounds good." It does, doesn't it? For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, it's it's like on par with Taco Bell. I mean, it's probably causing cancer, but we're not going to talk about that. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, we ask that you would speak to us from your word. We thank you for this text. We thank you that this whole book is powerful and alive. But Holy Spirit, we need you to come and unlock it. And so we invite you in these moments to be our teacher as always. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. And amen. I I think it's interesting how God is so intentional and his word is timeless. And even in little passages like this where it doesn't seem like there's a lot of depth, there's some beautiful things that we can learn from. And there's a blueprint here for actually how our church works. And I think that as I teach it to you today and help you understand why and how we do what we do, there's a lot of application for your personal life. There's tons of application for your family life and even for those who are leaders in business. Maybe you are a leader, a manager, uh or maybe even an entrepreneur. There's a lot of things there for you as well. So if we go to verse 36, I'm going to teach it a little bit out of order. We're going to drop to the Mirites first. In verse 36, they were appointed to care for the frames of the tabernacle, all the crossbarss, the posts, the bases, all that equipment, and the post of the surrounding courtyard. Basically, what they had is what we'll call like the the posts or the structure. Jot it down this way. It kind of represents purpose. It's it's the backbone of it all. It's really what holds everything together, if you will. And we talked last week, and I won't spend a lot of time on it, about how all of us are born on purpose and for a purpose. And the reality is everything in life exists for a purpose. And it's very important that you define that. In fact, our church exists for a purpose. And I believe every good local church should have a purpose statement. Most of them should be pretty similar because we're all kind of doing the same thing. But our purpose statement here at IT Town, and if you're new, hopefully you'll hear this over and over and over again, that we exist to help you move from where you are to where God has called you to be. Cuz we believe that the Christian life is a journey. We believe that there's never a place that you reach where you have reached it all, you've accomplished it all, you've done it all. Because there's always more to God. There's always more where we can grow. There's always areas that we can get better in. And so today, I want you to know that number one, Kate and I don't have our own vision for your life. We don't have a plan of how we're kind of working or manipulating people to try to get you to fit into the slots of the things that we're trying to accomplish. That's not true at all. We want you to be where God has called you to be. And so it's important that we help you discover kind of what that is, but also important that you're continually taking steps that you never stagnate, that you don't stop, that whether you're brand new, some of you may be here today trying to figure out God, like what is this whole God thing? And why do these people get together on the weekend? Like, what is this stuff? Is this a cult or is this real? And and I invite you to take the journey with us to sort that out. Others of you are like, there's nothing new under the sun. I've heard every message that could be preached. I've read the Bible a million times over and I've been a believer my whole life. I believe that we can come alongside you and help you to take steps because there's more for you in God. Wherever you're at, the important thing is that we never stop moving. In fact, I would say the people in Christianity who hate God and Christians themselves and everybody else in most churches have just simply stopped moving. When you're not moving is when you become incredibly critical and focused on others. when you're moving, you're actually focused on what's next in the future and what God has for you. So, I'd encourage you to continue to take steps of faith, take risk, follow God, try something new in his kingdom, and continue to grow because God always has something more for you. Now, in order for that to work, in order for the purpose to be something we can focus on, we've got to make sure that it always stays simple and clear. In fact, simple is one of our uh foundational uh values as a family. Kate and I early on said everything we do in life, we got to make sure it's simple. Number one, because I'm not that smart. And so, we just got to if it's simple, I can get it like right. I can comprehend it. And so, we're going to keep it simple. Also, because it helps us kind of stay focused. The world loves to make things really complicated, and the gospel is just not that complicated. It's very simple. and vision, clarity, purpose. It can all be really simple. But you got to eliminate the clutter. You got to fight for simplicity because we live in a world that loves to complicate things. You know the old preacher statement that if the devil can't make you bad, he'll make you busy. And there's a lot of good things that you could be doing with your life, but they're not God things. There's a lot of good things our ministry could be doing, but they're not necessarily spiritled. And so then we find ourselves pulled incredibly thin in too many directions. So we have to fight to purge. We have to fight to stay focused. And we have to do that in our personal lives. We have to do that in our family life. We have to do that in our spiritual lives. We have to make sure that we keep things simple. 1 Corinthians 14:33 says, "For God is not a God of disorder, but a God of peace." So verse 40 says, "Everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way." If we keep it simple, then we can have order. And we need order because order is actually what creates peace. God is a God of peace. And so in order to have peace, let's have things in order is what that scripture says. And and you need to understand this from the perspective of uh of just general community and life. The church also needs to be focused with simplicity because that creates order and order creates peace. Like think about your experience when you go shopping. I don't go shopping very often, but occasionally I'll walk into the Keystone Mall and I've never really ventured inside of Louis Vuitton because I'm pretty sure they only have four or five things for sale in the whole store and the security guard is a little intimidating and uh and I think everything in there is like $10,000. So, praise the Lord, it looks cool. But I'm like I look at it and I think, man, that's like a such a peaceful place. Like, could I just come in and maybe do my devotions? I don't know. Like I'm not really looking to buy anything, but if I could just have a cup of coffee and sit in that chair, like everything's in order. It's just so peaceful. It's very It's There's something about it that even though it's expensive, it feels almost welcoming cuz it's it's peaceful. It's in it's in order. It's simple. Now, contrast that to how you feel when you go shopping at an Old Navy. Praise the Lord for Old Navy. We buy things from Old Navy. But when you go in there, you're like, "Did India throw up in this store? I don't understand. like, "Has anyone ever folded anything?" Ever. Uh, you know, we'll be looking for a pair of pants for one of our kids and Kate's like, "Did you find the size of it?" I'm like, "I don't know. I'm like 12 pants deep and I found at least four different cuts and three different colors and I I think that they're actually different manufacturers. I don't even know what I'm looking at. I feel like it should all be just sizes, but I'm finding bell bottoms and also uh at the same time skinny jeans. Like, I don't know. They're all the same color, but some are stretchy and some are kind of scratchy. And I don't, you know, it's just like, what is happening? And then you don't find what you need, so you just throw it in that pile of clothes. It's just like sitting on a table that everything is like almost free, like 12 cents, buy this, you know? I don't know. And I'm not saying I'm not knocking it cuz we go and shop there. But it is not peaceful. I'm not like, oh yeah, let's go spend a few minutes and just peruse through Old Navy. It's like we're going to get we're going to war. You know what I mean? like you better give me a cup of coffee and get in the right you like get your head right because we're going like it's just chaos. And so what we want to do is try and keep things very clear and very simple by creating peace and creating order. And so we just have to do a few things and we try to do them really really well instead of doing all the things a church could do which we celebrate the call that different churches have because that's why there are so many different ones because God gives different callings to each one. What we would say is that we try to do a few things really well. So if you do it in terms of food, we would say that we're a prime 47, not a golden corral. Like we're going to make steak because steak really is I mean outside of Taco Bell, steak of course is the best food on planet Earth. And especially at Prime 47. I had the chance to eat at Prime 47 this week, which I don't go there too often cuz you know it's it's a little salty and uh and it should be cuz it's really great. And it's like when I'm eating that fillet, it's like I can feel the Lord telling me, "I'm proud of you. I love you." You know, like it's just it's just and I'm I'm interceding for all of you who are vegetarians. I'm praying that the truth will set you free cuz you are missing out on life. I'm just telling you, it's fantastic. But you can't go over to the ice cream machine at the end and just put the sprinkles and the syrup and all. You can't with a waffle and then some broccoli. You know what I'm saying? Like you just can't. They won't let you do that at Prime 47. Go and crowd, knock yourself out. You go to Cheesecake Factory, you get a menu that's like, "This is all the food in the world. This is everything anyone knows how to make." You like, "Why? This is like libraries of things to order. I don't What is this? I don't get it. It's that's not what we're trying to do here. We'd rather just do a few things really, really well." And your life would be successful if you try to do the same. Ephesians chapter 5. I love the Bible because it's so direct. Some people get offended. But verse 15, it says, "Act like people with good sense, not like fools." Praise the Lord. These are evil times. So make every minute count. Verse 17, don't be stupid. The next time I say that to my child, they're like, I'll be like, I'm quoting Ephesians. Praise the Lord. Don't be stupid. Ephesians 5:17 says, don't be stupid. Instead, find out what the Lord wants you to do. Man, I love that passage because Paul's literally saying the definition of stupidity is leading your own life your way instead of finding out what God wants you to do. So, what we have to do is we have to find that purpose. And we talked a lot about that last week for our personal lives, for our family lives, like the reason why God brought you together as a couple, the reason why you have children. There's a purpose that's bigger than just populating the earth and consuming something for several years before you pass into eternity. You know, there's a purpose for that company God put in your heart. There's a purpose for the ministry that God calls us to be a part of. And we have to make sure that we understand what it is. So, even if this is not a place that becomes your home church, I want to encourage you to always ask what's the goal? What's the goal? Where are we going? What's the vision? Because here we're just trying to simply help you move, continuing to take steps. Now let's back up to verse 25. It says at the tent of meeting we got the Gersones. They're responsible for the care of the tabernacle and the tent, the coverings and the curtain at the entrance. So we started with the posts that kind of gives us the purpose, the infrastructure if you will, of kind of what holds it all together. But now we have the curtains. Those are the things that people actually see or or the systems of the the whole deal. And so jot it down. Number two, I would call that process. You have to have purpose. But then the process are actually the things that you do that deliver the purpose. So many people actually have heard from God and they have a dream. They've got a purpose. They they know something that's birthed in their heart. this thing they can see that God wants to do in their life, but they're not doing anything in the daily part of life to make that come to pass. And that's what you call that's not faith. That's just a fantasy because you have to have the right things happening to get you. You have to have the steps, the actual steps that you take. So, we say we're going to take you on a journey, but then we have to actually define what that journey is. And in Colossians chapter 1, we find in verse 18 a passage of scripture that talks about what the church ought to be doing. And it's really a restatement of the great commission that Jesus gave. And we find it in four or five different ways and four or five different passages throughout the New Testament. But basically, I've really come to believe that that everybody can have their own expression of it, but there's really four things every lifegiving church ought to be doing that are non-negotiable. Now they can do it in different ways but you have to have evangelism that's reaching people who are far from God. You have to have fellowship and then you have to have disciplehip some type of spiritual growth and then you have to have ministry which is where you get people in the body of Christ involved engaged in using their gifts. And so the way that we have defined that, the steps that you're supposed to take or the the the big rocks of how we help you on that journey from where you are to where God's called you to be is on every wall in every building. And you'll find it on a lot of our print material. It's the reach, connect, grow, and go. That's our version of evangelism, fellowship, disciplehip in ministry. So we want to reach people for Jesus. The we have lots of outreach ministries. There's lots of partners that we have and of course we have ittown TV and we have all kinds of foster care outreaches and our foster care ministry and the closet and then of course we have feed your neighbor and delivering food and schools and children and all the things. But the number one way we reach people for Jesus is in our weekend services. We see thousands of people come to faith in Christ in our weekend services. And it's fascinating to me how people would say, "Oh, you know, this the the haters of the church are like that this isn't even this whole thing has just been made up in America. This whole like microphone in a stage and talking to people in a room, that's all fairly new. The church really never did that." Well, they just have never read the Bible because the Bible says that Paul rented the lecture hall of Tyrannis and preached every day for a year until the entire province of Asia had heard the gospel. And so the apo if it's good enough for Paul, it's probably good enough for us. And he effectively reached an entire continent with the gospel just by renting an auditorium a lot like this and preaching the gospel just like I'm doing to you now every day for a year. And so we know that it's a proven biblical method for reaching people for Christ. And I just want to take a moment to celebrate that we have seen 66,536 people make a decision for Jesus in the last 15 years. That's unbelievable. Now, I just want you to know, no matter how great that response is, I never think it's enough because it's like that's someone's dad, that's someone's child, that's that, you know, that's that's a marriage being rescued, that's a a destiny being altered, that's a life being changed. And some of you are a little skeptical. Some of you would say, "Well, where are they all at?" Like 66,000. That's a lot. There are a lot of different churches in town. Praise the Lord. We're great at sending Christian missionaries to other churches in town. We'll get better at keeping people here in a minute. We'll we're working on it. Okay. But others of you would be a little skeptical cuz you're like, "Oh, numbers. They're all about the numbers." Is one of those numbers churches. And I just want you to know, yes, unashamedly, we are all about the numbers because numbers represent people. If numbers weren't a part of the Bible, we wouldn't even know Gideon's story. Like, numbers matter because numbers are souls and numbers are stories. And I'm going to tell you one of them. You may have heard about it before and there are thousands of these. But you know, there was a a time not too long ago that everybody kind of lost their mind. And uh and you know, we were told that everybody that we know is going to die. And I'm not making light of the fact that there was an actual real sickness. And we had people in our church that got sick. And we we knew people who did actually pass from COVID. And if you're one of those families, we grieve with you. Our heart breaks for you. But uh but in the midst of all that, of course, the church was closed and the government was telling us that we were not allowed to gather and and Kate and I just had a word from God in the middle of all that that we were supposed to have services that we're supposed to be open. And uh it wasn't a popular decision. Certainly wasn't a we weren't trying to be strategic. We weren't like, "Hey, if we're open and nobody else is, that's going to be good for us because we were like, we'll probably go to jail." They I mean, we might lose the church. Like everybody could leave. Our staff could quit. and we sat our staff down and we were like, we might blow this whole thing. We don't know. I mean, we don't really care to be honest. We just feel like this is what God's called us to do and we're going to be obedient to what we feel like the Holy Spirit is leading us to do. And so, uh, I called the mayor and I just said, "Hey, look, I know I know we have this restriction of 10 people and I just I have heard from God. My wife is in agreement with me and this is what we're going to do. And uh, I'm not trying to be disrespectful. I'm not trying to fight you. I'm not trying to create problems. I just believe that uh you know the only way that we can help people is by by opening the doors of our church. And I don't know why I said this, but I just said, you know, and and I believed it because I had felt this. I just said, "Look, if someone in the greater Indianapolis area who is isolated, because so many people are right now, wakes up on a Sunday morning and and feels like they want to go commit suicide and there's no church with doors open where they can experience life and their life could be saved. I believe that their blood is on my hands." And you might think that's arrogant or extreme. It's just how I feel. And so, we're going to open the church. And um you know, so we did. and uh thousands of people got really upset and a whole bunch of our church left and some of you came during that time and you know it's kind of a it was kind of whatever and now people are like oh so strategic and smart and bold and we're just like we're just trying to be you know we don't mean any of that we're just trying to be obedient well I told the story about 3 years after all of that went down on the first Wednesday and after the service this girl came up and she was just balling she was probably in her mid20s I'd this and I I said, "Are you okay? Is there anything we can pray for you about?" And she said, "You you told the story tonight, and I just want you to know that you were talking about me." I said, "Excuse me, I don't know what you're talking about." She said, "I'm a single mom and I was completely isolated during COVID and completely overwhelmed and I didn't feel like I could make it anymore. So, I I loaded my daughter in my car and I took her to my mom's house. She lives in Fisers. Dropped her off. I was driving on my way to go shoot myself and I passed this church and the banner said, "We're open right now for church." And she said, "I just drove on the property and it was at the time that we were doing services of 10. We we kind of started with uh you know, we had the restriction only services of 10." So, we took all the seats out. We just had 10 seats socially distanced and I we we considered all of our team the essential staff. and uh you had to reserve a ticket cuz that's how we regulated the services. And she said, "I didn't have a ticket, but somebody from your church who had reserved one gave it to me and I got to attend in their place." And she said, "I gave my life to Jesus in that service. I've never missed a Sunday since. And I'm alive today because the doors of the church were open." That's just one story of the thousands and the thousands and the thousands of stories. That's why numbers matter. And consequently, I want you to know that we'll never ever under any circumstance, unless I'm dead, close the doors of this church for any reason ever again because we believe in reaching people. But then we have to get connected, right? The Bible calls us to fellowship. So, we're talking about how do you get from where you are to where God's called you to be. You got to give your life to Jesus. You really have to encounter God. We want to reach you. But then we got to connect you in relationships because that's where you're really going to grow. In fact, if I asked you to list the top five sermons you've ever heard in your life, you probably couldn't name two, if that. And that's rude and offensive because I spent a lot of time working on this stuff, trying to make really good messages from the Lord that will help change your life. But if I asked you to name five people that have impacted your life positively or negatively, you could probably name 10 in both categories because people are what changes your life. And so we got to get connected with people because they're the ones who are molding and shaping us. And that's why we do circles or what you may know as small groups. Now we do them a little bit different because we allow our uh leaders to use their passions and their interests. That's what they gather around. So, there's a ton of them that'll be Bible studies or book studies, and they'll they'll dig deeper into the word, which is great. The really deeply spiritual ones usually will kind of break apart the Sunday message and talk about how to apply it to their lives. And uh those are the ones that we really commend. Praise the Lord. I'm joking. Nobody ever laughs. And then, um and then of course, you know, we have all kinds of other groups as well that'll uh gather around sports or a meal or going for a walk or all kinds of different things. We don't look at you and go, "Okay, you're from south part of Fisers and you have 2.5 children. Let me assign you to the people that you'll know for the rest of your life. These are your friends." We don't do that cuz you're an adult and a Midwesterner and God knows you'll never do anything we tell you to do. So, you just get to pick your own friends and your own circle, but we stop and start them three times a year so that you're not the one that's like crashing somebody else's party like, "Oh man, we've been going for nine years. Why are you here? We love our friends in our circle. Like, you're the new person." No, we everybody's new and those start on August 31st. I'd love for you to jump in. And then we have a couple of events that are designed just to help you get to know other people like a men's conference and a women's conference. This year for men's night, it's coming up on September 11th. We've got Tim Tibo coming to preach to us, which is going to be great. And then I'll have a message as well. And we're going to have a great car show. And you're going to meet some other guys. ladies, the very next night, September 12th, that Friday night, you have chosen, which is always the most attended conference. And it's the whole theme is wanted by God. And so it's like whole cowgirl theme, and you'll have like, you know, everybody's going to wear their cowboy boots and cowboy hats, and they're going to have all kinds of things that you can do that are fun. You'll get to meet other people. And Pastor Ally Muny, who's one of our best friends, is coming, and she does an amazing job. And of course, my wife will be hosting and preaching. All of it is going to be amazing with the afterparty. It's going to be a great chance for you to connect with other people. We got to get connected in relationships. Then of course, we want you to go through disciplehip. The grow plan is a catalyst for that. Come discover your gifts on the weekend after the 11:30 service. And then of course ultimately you need to be in ministry. We want you serving on the team in some capacity, whether it's the weekend or other times. We talked about that last week. And then of course, not only do we have that vision of the steps of the process, but then how we're going to take the journey and everything that we do, we have these values that we want to be in love with Jesus, that we want to be in love with people, that we want to do it with excellence. I'm tired of the church not having excellence. Those of you who are my age, that grew up in the church, there's always been two different standards. There's good and then there's Christian good. Come on, somebody. There's movies and then there's Christian movies. That's good for a Christian movie. There's art and then there's Christian art. There's music and then there's Christian music. And sadly, it doesn't seem like the standards are the same, which is why church members will be like, "Hey, our cat has peed on our couch for 30 years and we just bought a new one. You think the youth group would like it?" It's like, "No, it's garbage. Throw it away. If it's not good enough for your house, it's not good enough for God's house." You know, like look at the temple that Solomon built. Everything was plated in gold. So goldplate your cat urine couch and then you can bring it to church and we'll take that. Praise the Lord. We'll find a purpose for that. But we need excellence. And then Jesus was fun. So everything that we do should be fun. These are values. Can we can we show our love for Jesus? Can we show our love for people? Can we do it with excellence? Can we make it fun? Everything that we do has to be run through that lens. We're talking about these processes that will help deliver you to the purpose. We have solid financial policies. Everything that we do around here has a budget and the budgets are managed tight. We have incredible discipline. We live with unbelievable margin. We operate with great integrity because we know that it matters. We know that every dollar is his, not ours. And we want to make sure that we always are able to respond like when the floods came and we're able on your behalf to respond to convoy of hope because we haven't spent everything that we have cuz the Bible says that the wise have stores of choice things that have been held back like there's a story that we heard about we really value consistency. So when we commit to somebody like a school especially for feed your neighbor we don't want to just come in one time. We praise the Lord for the ministry outreaches that may do this or that or kind of like, you know, cherrypick and bombshell this place or that, but we believe that it's coming again and again and again and again. It's faithfulness that makes the difference. And we heard about this little trailer park where there are 75 children living in a trailer park under the poverty line, struggling with food insecurity. And there had been ministry after ministry over a period of time that had come and committed that they would be there to serve, but for one reason or another had fallen by the wayside. And so they really didn't feel like anybody would consistently come and help. And one of our go-amers heard about it and we said, "Yes, we can commit to this." But because of your generosity and the margin that we operate with, those 75 children every single week are receiving meals. They're receiving all kinds of homegoods from our partner of Convoy of Hope. And we will never stop taking that because we are going to love those people with consistency. But all of that comes because we have these principles. I just want you to know whether you realize it or not, you have principles in your life as well. Every church, every family, every human, every organization, we all have principles. We don't see ourselves as principled often times when the ones that we're using just don't work. Like we all have a philosophy of health. There is a plan that you're embracing for your physical fitness. There is a plan that you're embracing for your finances. Just might not be working. It might not be delivering the vision that you desire. And so we look at people who are successfully say, "Oh, they have better processes. They're the they're process discipline purpose kind of people." No, they're the same as you. They're they just have embraced the kind of disciplines and processes that actually work. Praise the Lord. Come on, somebody. It got quiet in this Methodist church. We just need ones that are biblical because biblical ones actually work. So, we got the purpose. We got the principles. And now we have to close. Let me get to verse 31. The Kathites were responsible for the care of the ark and the table, the lampstand, the altars, the articles that were used in ministry. So, that was really kind of the spiritual thing. So, we got the tent posts that represents the purpose. This is the overarching call. This is the directions. What holds everything together. Then we got these principles, these systems that are delivering the vision, delivering the wind. But really what makes everything work is this third category and that's presence. At the end of the day, everything that we do is deeply spiritual. And we could do all that we could to have people sing untuned and to start and end on time and to have excellence in the lobby and good coffee and all the things that you could imagine that would make a church good. But I just want you to hear clearly from me that if we don't have the presence of God, we have nothing. None of it matters without Jesus. And the truth is in all of our lives, we need to encounter God. In fact, I'm going to do a whole message about the fact that our church encounters God because I just want you to know I'm not trying to get you in and out of here quick and get your religious fixed so you can, you know, feel better about your life and just get on to the cafeteria and, you know, kind of appease that Christian guilt of being in the house. We want to create moments where you actually are touched by the presence of the almighty God. I think it's the foundation of life. The Bible says it's in him we live and move and have our being. Like I think that we desperately need fresh touches from heaven. I think there's something supernatural that happens when we're together. I know the Holy Spirit lives in us. I spend time with the Holy Spirit every day of my life. But I'm just telling you, there's something different when you're in the room. There's something different when we come together and worship together. There's something about the presence of God that touches us in a unique way in these moments. And that's what we're trying to do on the weekend. It's very calculated, very strategic. And then we do other things like camp meeting. This year we're having camp meeting end of September. It's going to be an amazing time in the presence of God right at the end of September, beginning of October. We'll give you all the dates, but my friend, Pastor Earl Mlullen, who uh leads a great church in Dallas, we played basketball or Roberts together. He's a phenomenal preacher. He's going to kick us off on a Sunday night. And then we have uh both Chad Vch and Levi Leusco coming and I'll close it out. We're going to have just an incredible time, but we're going to have moments at the altar and moments of worship and moments in his presence. And I'm praying that you'll be here because it's the presence of God that changes everything. And as we gather together, I'll close with this very quick thought. There are three only three angels that are named in the Bible. Three archangels that have names. And we believe the reason is because they really represent the presence of God. That we have Gabriel who would bring a word. Gabriel always had messages. And then Lucifer who became the devil and fell from his place was in charge of worship. And then we have Michael who is in charge of warfare. Michael was always engaged in spiritual battle. We believe that's what a picture of even these moments that we gather should look like. So we begin with worship because the Bible says that we enter his gates with thanksgiving. We come into his courts with praise. It says in Psalm that he sits enthroned above the praises of his people. There's something about when we worship, when we lift up our hands and our voices, that God comes and visits us in a different way. And we're really trying to pastor you. Like I I know that you'll probably never do it, but it's so important if you could actually come on time because we pick all this stuff on purpose. Like we're very intentional about how all the songs flow together and the theme of the day and how it interacts with the message. And it's not like a fast song to drop the kids off and a medium song to get you coffee and a slow song to find your seat and then we do the preaching thing. It's not just a little music at the beginning. Some of you are like, "Wow, there's three. I didn't know the number. Actually, never knew." No, it's it's it's intentionally structured to bring you into the presence of God. Something about worship that lightens your load, flips your reality, reminds you that your God is big and that your problems are small. Then we have that little moment at the end of worship. We come up and pray. That's not just a prayer transition. That's what we call warfare because we believe in spiritual warfare. Nothing happens in the natural till it first happens in the spiritual. And that prayer moment didn't start in that prayer moment. It started on Friday when we had 6:00 a.m. prayer that you're more than welcome to be a part of for an hour. We intercede for our church for the weekend. And then that Sunday morning, every seat that is sat in today, the seat you're sitting in was prayed over this morning by a prayer team member with hands laid on it at every campus. And right now during this service, there are people in prayer closets, prayer teams interceding over you. That your heart would receive the word, that God would encourage you, that you'd hear the Holy Spirit speak to you. We have 21 days of prayer and fasting in January. 21 days of prayer and praise the Lord feasting in August. It's coming up August 3rd. It's going to be an amazing time. 6 a.m. prayer. I want to encourage you to join us in warfare. Don't just have kumbaya time with Jesus. Take authority over the devil. Break the strongholds over your family. Come against his attack against your finances, your health, and your life. Because Jesus said, "I've given you authority to trample over snakes and scorpions." We need to be a bold church warfare. And then the last one is the word. The word is the most important thing that we do here. Because the word is what changes your life. This is the most incredible book that's ever been written. And I would never dilute these moments by giving you happy principles, good thoughts for life. I'm not going to give you three points in a poem. Half the time I don't like the stuff the Holy Spirit makes me preach, but it's the truth. And it's the truth that sets you free. You don't need to feel better about yourself. I've heard time and again, "Pastor, you got to stop preaching that. It makes me feel bad." I don't care. I'm not I'm not here to make you feel good. There's actually a whole verse about preachers who only tell you what you want to hear and make you feel better about yourself. And if you're skipping churches looking for one that makes you feel good, the presence of God will make you feel good. But I promise I won't because I'm going to tell you the truth. But you know what? This book is full of all kinds of amazing things that it speaks over your life. It says that you've been adopted into the family of God. It says that your family will serve the Lord. It says that he will give his angels charge over you so that you will not strike your foot against a stone. That no weapon formed against you would prosper. That when the enemy comes in like a flood, he would raise up a standard against him. And even when you get sick, it says that by his stripes, you are healed. And that he turn all things together for the good for those who love him and are called according to his purpose. That he would provide for your every need according to his riches in Christ Jesus. that he would give you peace that passes all understanding that would guard your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus. This book is full of amazing promises. You don't have to try harder. You have to depend on him because it's not by might and it's not by power. It's by his spirit, says the Lord. David said, "It's your word that I've hidden in my heart that I might not sin against you." It's the incorruptible seed of God's infallible word that will change your life. And everything we do from worship to warfare is to bring you to the moment that your heart is able to receive. And when that word goes down inside of your heart and the Holy Spirit makes it make sense and come to life, it'll change you. You know, every one of us will pass from this life. Enoch was caught away by the Lord. The Bible says God loved him so much he just came and snatched him away. A dude never died. Outside of him, death has a 100% success rate. So that means one day you and I will stand before God and give an account for how we lived our lives and whatever we did in this life will determine all of eternity which we can't comprehend in our minds because it never ends. So let me give you a simple example. If I were to tell you, hey, for the next three months, everything you do will be examined and watched, and at the end of those three months, however you've lived your life, will determine what the rest of your life looks like. However many years you have left, the rest of your life will be sealed by three months. In those three months, you have the chance to change it all. Once that three months passes, whatever decisions you made have will affect the rest of your life. You'd have the best three months. You wouldn't be in Jenny Netflix. You'd share the gospel with everybody. You'd give generously because it's only three months. It's just s such a short period of time. And you have the rest of your life. God's going to bless you and you'll have influence and all the things that'll be so amazing as a return. Can I just tell you that no matter how young you are, how much time you have left, the 3 months versus the rest of your life pales in comparison to your entire actual life on this planet versus all of eternity. And yet so many of us are living for the three months. We're doing whatever we want, living however we desire. And yet God has made you for a bigger purpose. This life is the dream and heaven is actually the reality. We need to discover that purpose and put a process in place in our personal lives and our family lives that would help us as we every day rely on the presence of God. Lord, we pray as we close this service that you would lead us, Holy Spirit, that you would guide us, direct us, convict us. Help us, Lord, to be who you've called us to be. With every head bowed and every eye closed at every campus, the campus pastors are joining me on the stage. Maybe you've not lived a focused life. Or maybe you've lived a life that's focused on just this life. God has a plan for you. There's a purpose. And God has processes that you'll find in scripture that will help you get to that place. But the most important thing is his presence. You can't make it in this life without him. And today, I want to give you the opportunity to open your heart to Jesus. The scripture tells us clearly that he's either Lord of all or he's not Lord at all. Maybe you've just lived for this moment and not for the life to come and you're ready to go allin to completely surrender to him. That's really where you'll find true life. Before we go today, I'm not going to make you stand or come to the front, but if that's you, I want to pray with you a prayer that will change your life. Surrendering your heart to Jesus. Before we pray, if you're in that place, would you just with no one looking around lift your hand and say, "Pastor, that's me. I'm ready to go allin for Jesus. I'm ready to really make an impact with my life. I'm ready to get focused. I'm ready to live a life that would produce the kind of momentum that God's called me to have. Come on, would you just take a moment to lift your hand up high before we pray? All across the room, if you say, "I'm ready to make the most of it. I know this is my moment." Yes. Yes. Yes. All across the room, I'm so proud of you. It's amazing. Good job. You can put your hands down if you haven't already. Here's what we'll do. I'm going to give you the words to pray. You can pray them quietly because God will hear you. Just say, "Lord Jesus. Forgive me for all of my sin. I repent and I invite you into my life to make me new. Help me to understand my purpose in you." Then just tell him, "I give you my life in Jesus name." God, we pray this week that you would give us your presence, your power as we even in our individual personal lives enter into worship. God, as we pray, as we study your word, we thank you that it puts wind in our sails. Help us, Lord, to follow the principles, the processes of your word as we pursue the purpose that you've created us for. We love you today. In Jesus name we pray. And all God's people said, "Amen." Amen. Come on, church. Would you help me celebrate with those who prayed that prayer? Come on, give it up for them today. [Processed]